Repentance
by Moot Lagoon
Summary: Hunting her would-be killer, reclaiming her stolen property, helping a sniper cope with his regrets, facing her own inner demons, and among other things, saving the entire Mojave from the clutches of the Legion. Who knew getting shot in the head would be so much damn trouble? Possible romance. Maybe.


**A/N: **Oh, hello. It's been a long time since I've written an actual story but I just couldn't get the idea of this character out of my head. I mean, I've thought about her so much that I have her past planned out in ridiculous detail. Her future, however, in uncertain. Honestly, I'm just kind winging this and I probably will never actually finish it (you've been warned) but I do have some little scenes I want to write and I'm much too crazy to just write them. No, I have to write everything leading up to them too. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it. And who knows, maybe if I get enough positive feedback I'll keeping this one going for a while.

**Disclaimer:** I'm writing this entirely for fun and I will not be making any kind of profit from this story. I also do not own anything from the Fallout universe. I hope that satisfies the Copywrite Gods

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**CHAPTER ONE**

The setting sun painted the sky in purples, pinks and oranges as the stars began to peek out over the eastern horizon. The temperature was already dropping into the cold of the desert night and the Courier shivered as a light breeze cooled the sweat from her trek in the sun.

She trudged her way up the road towards Novac, the dinosaur serving as a beacon, promising rest and relative safety. McKenzie "Mack" McLean rubbed at her nose, wishing she could forget the smell of burned rubber and human flesh and the images that thought conjured up.

Nipton had been... she had no words to describe the horror she saw there. The dying men on the crucifixes, the headless bodies, the mayor's charred corpse on the pile of tires. Vulpes Inculta had told her in exacting detail what he had done to the townsfolk, relishing in it, even. She had thought for sure she was going to die there, or worse, be taken for a slave. Instead, Inculta had just left her there as a "witness". He had wanted her to spread the word of the Legion, like they were some sort of divine power, there to purge the land of its sins.

After the Legionaries had gone, Mack had promptly stumbled to the corner of a building and threw up. Bile splashed onto her boots and the pants of her borrowed vault suit, until her stomach twisted in pain from dry heaving. And then she set off to follow Inculta and the Legionaries so she could kill them. She had gotten two steps before she came to her senses. She was one woman in a flimsy vault suit with a varmint rifle on the brink of falling apart in her hands- _Fuck!_ If she only had her goddamn guns!

She had turned to leave Nipton and put as much distance as she could between herself and the carnage, but she made the mistake of looking back over her shoulder. The billowing smoke, the ash in the air, and the dead all around, all served as a painful reminder to her.

The sight of the ruined town brought the image of a smouldering ranch, unbidden, to her mind and Mack knew she couldn't leave it like that. The people caught in the massacre had been someone's loved ones and didn't deserve to be left for the bloat flies and coyotes. So, with a heavy heart she set to work making a funeral pyre, putting off her search for the Checkered Asshole for a few hours.

Reflecting on Nipton just made Mack feel even more exhausted as she dragged her feet to the hotel's main office. She listened to Jeannie May prattle on about gossip, nodding mutely until she finally shut up and handed over the key to a room. Once in the room, she collapsed face first across the bed, not bothering to undress before she fell into an almost instant sleep.

It didn't take very long for the nightmares to begin. They started with the fresh memories of Nipton, and quickly morphed into images burned into her mind for life.

_The grass crunched under her boots, blackened burned, just like the crops and the fields where the brahmin and bighorners roamed. The dead bighorners were in the their pen, baking and rotting in the sun and the brahmin were nowhere to be seen. Smoke rose lazily from the embers of the wooden house, nothing more than a collapsed pile of burned wood and scraps of a rusty tin roof. _

_ And then, suddenly, she saw them. Scattered along the dirt path to the house like discarded dolls. Mack's eyes traveled over their singed clothes and burned flesh, past the bullet holes, skimmed their bloody faces. Their sightless eyes-_

Gasping, Mack awoke, sitting up in the lumpy hotel bed. Cold sweat covered her body, making the vault suit cling to her skin, and her chest heaved with uneven, ragged breaths.

"Oh, god," she moaned. The heels of her palms smashed into her eyes and she viciously tried to rub the images away.

She knew this was going to happen. She had stopped having the nightmares on a regular basis almost two years ago, only having them once every few months. But what she had seen in Nipton it had struck a nerve and struck it hard, so she knew the dreams would be inevitable.

Sighing, she climbed out of the bed and left the cramped room and stepped out onto the balcony. Leaning her elbows against the railing, Mack took a deep breath of the fresh, cool air and willed her heart to stop trying to pound out of her chest. Above her, the stars glittered faintly and all around her the town of Novac was quiet.

Mack tugged the chain around her neck, pulling the NCR dog tags from under her vault suit and absent-mindedly rubbed them between her fingers. She turned to look north and scanned the horizon for the lights of New Vegas. The thought of getting there and getting back her guns- and, she supposed the platinum chip- replaced her sorrow with a purpose. From the moment she woke up in Goodsprings, her driving force had been to find that Checkered Asshole and her get her guns back from him. And maybe see how he liked having a bullet in his head.

Unable to see the Strip from the hotel, Mack made her way down the stairs and across the courtyard to the dinosaur. She was surprised to find the door unlocked and walked into the Dino Bite Gift Shop. Less surprising, the shop was empty and silent. Mack eyed the door to the storeroom and was almost tempted to pick the lock just to see what kind of wares Cliff had to sell. She had passed through Novac a few times while running for the Mojave Express and every time she stopped by the Gift Shop, Cliff tried to sell her one of his Dinky toys. Mack never really believed they were in short supply like he tried to say.

Instead, she turned in the other direction and headed for the door that led to Dinky's mouth. The door had barely begun to creak open before it was flung open the rest of the way and Mack was faced with the business end of a .308 sniper rifle. She audibly swallowed as her heart leapt into her throat and she slowly raised her hands.

"I come in peace?" she offered lamely.

The man at the other end of the gun was unamused and stared at her with a stony expression. "What are you doing up here?"

"I just came up for the view," Mack paused and offered him a half-hearted grin. "And, you know, how often do you get to say you stood in the jaws of a dinosaur?"

The man in the red beret tilted his head just a fraction, barely even noticeable as he assessed her. "I think you should leave," he said, lowering his gun.

Mack relaxed when the gun was no longer in her face- relieved she wasn't going to get shot in the head _again. _"I just wanted to see if you can see the lights of the Strip from here. I didn't know there was anyone up here."

"No," he deadpanned. "You can't. Now, please leave."

"Geez," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "You're friends must think you're a stick-in-the-mud."

"I don't have any friends in Novac."

Flashing him her big grin, Mack said, "That's great. I'm not from Novac so let's share the clubhouse."

"No," he said slowly, regarding her through his sunglasses. "No, you're a stranger. Then I can trust you."

Confused, Mack's grin fell."Uh... what?" Suddenly she felt pretty wary of the sniper staring at her in the mouth of a dinosaur.


End file.
